Southeast Iowa Button Club

Mar 13, 2014

The Southeast Iowa Button club met Feb. 19, at the Keota Public Library. Six members answered roll call “How you met your sweetheart.” The new program books were distributed. Late Christmas gifts of Button Stationary from Shirley Roberts, who has been ill, were handed out. A get-well card and thanks were signed by the group for Shirley.

Norma Dunbar did the 1-5 and told about her mother’s recording of her youth and how she lived to be over 100 years old.

Georgia Conrad showed the blanket her daughter Caroline made with the use of buttons to embellish it.

Each piece of fabric represented clothing that was special from each of her six children. She included a booklet with it to tell the family story of the fabric and the buttons.

Members shared cards of buttons they were working on for the June show. Linda Beatty showed cards of glass and metal buttons. Norma brought a card of turtle buttons. Sharon Hahn brought a card of large metal buttons.

Linda Beatty gave a presentation on Bethlehem Pearl Buttons and showed her lovely cards. Many of the Bethlehem pearl buttons and jewelry were made in the 1960s and 70s. The most expensive pearl button in the world was owned by Pope Clement VII and it was sold to Napoleon.

Sharon Hahn gave a program on famous couples. She told the stories and showed examples on buttons of Cleopatra and Caesar, Adam and Eve, Pierrot and Pierrette, and the opera of Lohengrin “The Knight of the Swan.”

The March 20 meeting will be at the Washington Public Library in Washington at 10 a.m. All former members are invited to this meeting to celebrate “National Button Week.” In the afternoon the club will open the meeting to the public from 1:30 to 3 p.m. with a “Button Road Show.” Members will help you identify your buttons. Sandy Weller will make the arrangements and posters.

The next meeting will be in Muscatine at the Button Museum. A guest will tell about her early experience working in the Muscatine Button Factory.